Official PMC Cards (A Conglomeration of Past Ideas)

Description

Heya everyone, This is basically a re-hash of an idea suggested around August of last year that never really had a definitive answer and with the new ticket system I just thought there would be no harm in reinstating the concept here for new discussion.~ The Basics ~The idea is of "trading cards" for the site - basically, there'd be a database of all users of the site (possibly only those who have logged in in the past year or so, just to slim down the numbers) and it would be transformed into "playing cards". These cards wouldn't be usable, but just collectable and would look like this:When hovered over, they'd reveal some limited information:

The rank would be your level on the site. I'm not saying these exact numbers, but for example: Level 10 and below would be deemed "Common", Level 20 and below "Uncommon", Level 30 "Rare", and so on.

The info would be a small, customisable 140 characters that users can write themselves to describe them. Similar to that of a forum signature. This may be even more pertinent an idea if forum signatures are planning to be removed in the next update.

You could see your card collection on your profile, much like the existing tabs with "Submissions" and "Banners" however this one would say "Cards" and then you could scroll through them - they would be ordered in rarity, then alphabetised. ~ How You Would Get Them ~I was thinking that cards could be collected for:- every level you raise on the site- your placing in the official site contest: the higher you place, the more cards you receive. - your "anniversaries" on the site - celebrating your dedication and loyalty to PMC by rewarding you packs of cards for every year, two years, three years you stay on the site. This could come in a small "gift-pack" along with the new anniversary trophies added to your profiles.- perhaps in community challenges, the host of the competition could ask a moderator if they could supply a pack of cards as one of the prizes for winning? This would be a far better substitute than "subscribing/diamonding 5 things" etc.

These were the only way that I can think of that wouldn't cause the majority of people to spam submissions, forum threads or the like. If you have any more suggestions, feel free to leave them down below.

You would then have the ability to "trade" cards between users, "gifting" your friends a specific card and maybe there could be a forum thread or something dedicated to the trading of cards: people could post what they are looking for, what they are offering and could discuss their collection.There would be a strict no cards for diamonds/subscriptions/money rule.

AkirAssasin suggested the idea of a specific section of the chatroom dedicated to the trading of cards (similar to Server Hall, Skinning etc etc) which is now very relevant due to the possible addition of private/group chat-rooms and re-jig of existing ones.

~ Why? ~The thinking behind this idea is twofold.

First, I feel like it would be an awesome extra addition to the site and add another area of interest. My thinking was that it would hopefully inspire people to enter the contests (if they get cards for placing in the top 100, rather than just a "finalist trophy") and stay on the site for longer. This could help boost the entrants, which have been on the demise as of late. It would spur lots of heated enthralment of who can collect the most legendaries, who boasts the biggest collection and who has managed to find "so and so".

Secondly, the server that I help staff on recently just added this feature and I must say it really is propelling traffic - everyone is loving collecting cards of people they know on the server and it's been really successful. On the thread I had posted last year, 91 people affirmed that they supported the idea, in contrast to a 21 opposition. The idea definitely needs refining, but I think it could be one with some legs as the next section implement of the site.

Suggestions // FAQ

I added this section as I know there is bound to be lots of opinions, disagreements, suggestions and the like (rightly so!) and so this could be the area where I could post the outcomes of these for the ease of any viewers. And, just like all ideas there is 100% going to be issues raised - I hope to post the outcomes of them here after discussion.The cards are all coloured differently to represent the area of the site the user uploads in most frequently - this would add a completely new aspect to the collecting/trading of cards as it would allow all users to see what kind of person the card is representing and they can compile the biggest collection of skinners/bloggers/builders and so on. (suggested by eagoy)

When you rank up on the site you receive card packs (as prior mentioned in the OP) however the rank you reach affects the amount/rarity of cards you receive. For example, levelling up to rank 3 from 2 would get you an average card pack (10 cards) but levelling up to rank 5 or 10 or 20 would get you a card pack with increased advantage (20 cards).(suggested by Captain_SPD)

You could type your username, or that of someone you want in card form into the "database" and it will retrieve a list of links to users that own that specific card for you to trade with - this would be great for those trying to a) find their own card, b) find their friends cards c) compile a certain collection of cards (e.g. level 50 and above)(idea developed from SpoopyBlue)

So, I would love to hear any thoughts on this suggestion - obviously the site is very busy at the moment updating the forums/user profiles and such so if this were to happen (if) I would imagine it wouldn't be in the near future due to the fact it is not a priority in the slightest. I would just like to gauge some community reaction to the idea to be honest after leaving it for half a year so that we can all adapt our perceptions and reflect on the idea - I look forward to reading some opinions on whether you would, or would not like this implemented and for what reasons.

Comments (21)

Thanks! This is a really fun idea to think about and there's a lot to work out. I wish I had time to dedicate to it but I don't mind conceptualizing it over a longer period of time until the idea feels like it's ready to be developed and of course the time to implement it is available. I like having purely fun ideas to break up some of the reasonable ones.

The cards are already cool. I'm trying to think of more ways to give them purpose as well as reasons they are collectible. The level # & content #'s being on the card is interesting to think about. Would the card level up with the member OR would the card maintain the stats of the member when it was collected?? If maintained, then suddenly every member has potentially X number of level cards in existence. Depending on how cards are awarded / given out / rarity will also affect #. I don't know if we'd want multiple cards of each member though but it would certainly increase the rarity and limit the time period in which a level X of Pixel is even available and after you level... that's it

Numbering the cards would be a cool stat too which would also make every card unique. Example #5 of 102.

Are the heart & armor values on the cards tied to anything or just for fun? Think we'd want a reason for everything.

I also like that cards would promote members in sense that while interacting with them / viewing other's collections, you would of course be able to click to view the member profile. That alone provides a reason for introducing them beyond just being fun to collect.

Of course the big missing element here is... could they be used in a game of some kind on the website?

I mean, there isn't much to give as a reward, and the limit is partly because we're in a vast online community, so we really can't do individualised things...My recommendation would be handing out trophies for attaining a certain number of cards, especially unique (non-repeats) cards, as well as being able to trade cards in general to help this. The achievements would start out easy to make people feel "proud" of the cards system, ie. they get into it easier, however, the requirement of the achievements would then increase exponentially to make people still feel like they're achieving something, ie. 10 cards -> 25 -> 50 -> 100 -> 500 -> 1 000 -> 10 000. IDK it's just a thought :p

Snurly suggested having some sort of time-levelling system as well as the cards being content-based, and I do like this idea. The only problem is, I'm not too sure if that would mean that cards would have to be made for everyone if their account is active for a long amount of time, whilst they themselves have left the site. I can't imagine the number of Level 1 users that probably create an account, and never use it, and so to have cards for these people wouldn't be necessary: perhaps the cards should be based off of actual "activity" time on the site?

Glad you like the idea - I really appreciate you sharing your thoughts!!I do like the idea of making the cards have some sort of time-levelling also; it would push users to stay loyal to the site, and look forward to "ageing up". How would you suggest rewarding users with these cards?

Participant Pack, Finalist Pack, Top 3 Pack might work regarding contests. Participant pack would have common cards and only a couple, Finalist would have uncommon and more than Participant and Top 3 would be rare cards and have more than Finalist.

I think the Rank thing is awesome, But could you also base the ranks off of when they Registered on the site? I d not post a lot of content on the site, But I try to help others and give suggestions and ive been here for over 3 years. I don't really think itd be fair to call somebody Uncommon with those traits.

I think this is a fantastic idea, and sorry for not reading other comments so this may have been mentioned before, but the only problem seems to be that the card's'll feel a bit lackluster if not put in packs, as there are tonnes of users and only a limited amount of ways to get cards; I think this limit is fantastic as it makes the community strive towards a goal, but I think the rewards should be a little more... rewarding. Also it'll be hard to live update the cards, not to mention cards that are meant to be common may suddenly become rare if they do really well over a couple of months, hence de-valuing rarity a bit. I think the cards should henceforth be divided into years as well (ie. Snurly 2016), and gets bumped up a notch every time that account ages by a year.Other than that great, fun idea! :DPS. reading it I found other people thought up of packs ahaha, you may want to ignore that part :p

Sure thing, no worries - I'm open to all opinions, whatever side of the scale you fall on! If I just take what Candlevera said into account, there could be the opportunity for you to opt out of the feature by toggling that you would ﻿not﻿ be overly keen on becoming a card yourself, and you should feel free to detach yourself from the trading/talk.

That's such a good idea - I love the "toggle" button suggestion as it would assure that only active users are transformed into card-form. Will add that to the blog post (with credit) when I get a minute! Also, as you say, there are lots of things that you could do with this idea and I'll try and compile some of my own with the ones you suggested (the holiday one sounds brilliant - would be so fun, and a good holiday "treat"! I'd so want a snowman on the back of my card).

What if, instead of adding all users who've been online in the past year (which could lead to a lot of very low level unused accounts), it only added the members from the top 50 list, moderators, and people who "Sign up" to be a trading card. It'd be a little "toggle" button you click in your "Edit profile" area. You can only activate this after being on the site for at least a month, perhaps? Adding an XP requirement doesn't seem like the best solution to me since there's plenty of really active forum members who rarely, if ever post. Then again, they could do it like the PMC server with the forum post requirement.

On that note, it'd also be nice if the user in question could pick what their card represented, rather than it being automatically based on what they do, with no user input. Someone may have received a ton of XP from a blog that many non-site members viewed, but the majority of their content may be skins, now. They may prefer to have the Skinning type card rather than the blogger one, even if blogs earned them more xp.

It has a lot of potential, though it is something far off in the future. There's a lot of neat things you could do with the system. Imagine, for example, holiday based trading cards, where users could opt in to a temporary event where people collected alternate versions of trading cards, which can only be obtained during that holiday?

It is a super cool idea, but like you said, definitely not a priority. Would be wonderful to see down the road when more pressing things are done with.